Ebola Funding

The Basics
The 2014 Ebola outbreak was the largest in history. Although the disease had been ravaging multiple West African nations for some time, concern heightened rapidly in the United States when the first patient in the U.S. died from Ebola; two nurses who had provided care for the patient also contracted the disease (but ultimately recovered).

Reports showed a decrease in the number of reported cases, but concern is lingered on for years afterward, while recovery efforts in West Africa are likely to take significant time and effort.

The Problem
Amidst the international health crisis and the rising fear in the West, there are some who took the opportunity to criticize past spending cuts (some even going so far as to imply the outbreak would have been contained without them) and call for more funding moving forward.

Senate Appropriations held a full committee hearing to discuss the government’s response to the crisis, with increased funding an ever-present possibility.

The fact is, though, the Centers for Disease Control has seen its budget increase in recent years. For instance, in 2012, the CDC received well over $740 million in additional funding from the Affordable Care Act’s Prevention and Public Health Care Fund. For FY2019, the White House’s budget request for CDC was $5.66 billion in total.

Like any government agency, the CDC is prone to mismanagement and misallocated resources, and like most government agencies, its responsibilities are varied and expanding.

Where do we go from here?
It’s clear that there have been missteps and poor management, and real reform is required. Politicians and the public alike, though, should regard with skepticism any calls to increase spending on an organization whose problems are not related to a lack of spending.